linden tree near the water

At once a requiem, celebration and love letter in 12 songs, Linden Tree near the Water is a troubadour’s outpouring of love and loss laced with faith and hope—and an attempt to heal a harrowing fracture that left two hurting souls hurting even more.

The story goes something like this. He: depression, anxiety, autism spectrum. She: bipolar, abuse survivor, schizophrenia. They meet at a support group and experience an immediate connection coupled with raging physical attraction. She flickers in and out of his life, eventually landing in a psych ward. Determined to reconnect, he tracks her down. Their weekly visits feel warm, restorative and loving. Then one afternoon, she says, “They’re discharging me soon. Can I come live with you?” She arrives at his doorstep on a blistering July day, and so begins their four-month descent into hell. Crammed into a tiny three-room apartment, the love and goodwill that carried them this far dissipates into a cesspool of despair, rage and paranoia. Each utterly bewildered by the other’s madness, things deteriorate so badly that in the end they can only communicate through scribbled post-it notes. He sulks, frets and retreats; she yells, breaks everything in sight and defaces the furniture. One November morning, realizing that they’re trapped in an unsafe situation that can only get worse, he snaps. While she’s at her hospital day program, he collects her belongings in a duffle bag, throws them to the curb and changes the locks, expunging his would-be sweetheart from his home ... and his life.

How does one process, much less get over, such a tragic parting? He—I—chose to bombard it with love in the only way I knew how: heartfelt poetry set to shimmering, beautiful music. Taking the DIY ethos to its ultimate conclusion, I wrote, played and produced everything while doubling as recording engineer at The Grinning Zone. Recorded over a three-year period, the album represents a departure from my previous work with Sour Landslide and The Benvereens. While still rooted in classic rock and my trademark melodicism, these songs find me exploring a mellow, more organic sound with predominantly acoustic instrumentation. That said, this is not a sparse folk record. Much of the material has been given the full-band treatment (bass, drums, guitars, keyboards and percussion) along with such exotica as dulcimer, mandolin and recorder. Spanning the full spectrum of folk-rock with delicate ballads, crunching power pop, foot-stomping bluegrass, Byrdsian jangle and medieval Brit-folk, Linden Tree near the Water shows, in spectacular and sonorous fashion, that life’s messiest muck can be transformed into pearls.

Here are some endorsements the record has received so far. Preview clips of all 12 songs are featured below, and the album can be streamed in full on my SoundCloud page. To purchase Linden Tree near the Water in physical or digital form, please visit my online store. Thanks for listening!